It's easy to simulate inverted feathering !

1° draw an unfilled closed shape with no line ;
2° clone this shape (Ctrl+K) and apply a wide line to the clone ;
3° draw a wide rectangle around the whole, select it toghether with the cloned shape and do Arrange/Join Shapes ;
4° apply feathering to your newly joined shapes ;
5° apply clip view.

Now you can Ctrl+click on your feathered object to select it inside the clipping object and you can even move it around to create asymetric fathering.

Much more, try to select the whole Clip View object and add a different amount of feathering to it and you will see a lot of very nice possibilities.

For more about feathering combined with Clip View and grouping, see here : http://talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=14586

kindly,
ivan